CURRENT LITERATURE
I CHOSE TEACHING : AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY By Ronald Gurner
Mr. Gurner tells of " one stout defender of Victorian faith, who gave a ruling to his office that the parents of the fee-payers should be addressed as
Esq.' and the parents of the free- place scholars as Mr.' Against this faith in class-distinctions, Mr. Gurner makes a reasoned plea for the day-school as against the boarding school, and especially for schools where the pupils come from a variety of social classes and are treated without any discrimination between rich and poor. He does not overlook the advantages that followed from the conversion of grammar schools intended for poor boys into public schools specialising in the training of a govern- ing class, and as we see from the auto- biographical section with which he begins his book (Dent, los. 6d.) he has had first-hand experience of the diffi- culties that follow from control by public authorities. But Mr. Gurner not only chose teaching deliberately ; he chose to teach in a' particular type of school, and he does not regret that choice. There is perhaps nothing very novel in his views on religious education, govern- ing bodies, the examination system, and the need for a broader basis for secondary education (they are, on the whole, what one would expect from a disciple of Dr. Cyril Norwood), and he does not go deeply into underlying principles and causes, but his book is not only a personal confession, it is a fair statement of the views of many schoolmasters today.
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